Built in 1986, the Class B facility – which includes a roughly 50,000-square-foot office building and adjacent parking garage – sits on 2.5 acres along the east side of Cresthaven between Poplar Avenue and Murray Road. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2013 appraisal is $2.5 million.

In conjunction with the purchase, Cohen Cresthaven filed a $2.3 million deed of trust May 6 through Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP. Richard I. Cohen signed the deed as manager of the buying entity.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

FedEx Plans Center in Southwest Illinois

FedEx Corp. is building a $23.5 million ground distribution facility in southwestern Illinois that will process 10,000 packages an hour once fully operational.

Gov. Pat Quinn announced the plans Tuesday in Sauget, just across the river from St. Louis. He touted the company’s decision as an endorsement of his administration’s efforts to lure business.

Quinn’s office says the facility will support 25 full-time jobs and 150 part-time jobs once it opens, in August 2014.

Illinois is offering the company tax credits worth $459,000 over 10 years if it meets a commitment to create jobs at the Sauget site and invest in the community.

– The Associated Press

Magna Bank Executives Garner Distinctions

Three Magna Bank employees from the bank’s mortgage division have garnered some new distinctions recently.

Laura Sinclair, a senior vice president and Middle Tennessee production manager with Magna, has been appointed to the board of directors of the Nashville Mortgage Bankers Association.

Meanwhile, at the annual convention of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association the group awarded Magna executive vice president and mortgage division manager Lisa Reid with the Ernest P. Schumacher Lifetime Achievement Award. That honor goes to recipients who have a long-standing reputation as a leader in the mortgage industry and who have contributed locally and statewide to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Also, Meribeth LaBarreare, a vice president and senior loan officer with Magna’s mortgage division, has been inducted as president of the Tennessee Mortgage Bankers Association. As part of her responsibilities, she will advocate for the mortgage industry on the national level.

– Andy Meek

RedRover Picks Up Four Communicator Awards

RedRover Sales & Marketing took home four international awards as part of the 2013 Communicator Awards.

The firm got three Awards of Distinction for creative work completed for clients Thomas & Betts Corp., DreamCatcher Hotels and The MED Foundation. The firm also earned an Award of Excellence for its own newly designed website.

The award winners were announced by the International Academy of the Visual Arts. With more than 6,000 entries received from around the world, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals.

The awards are judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, a more than 600-member organization of professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts.

– Andy Meek

Lewis Gets Life in Petties Case

Clinton Lewis was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, May 14, for his role in the multi-state drug organization headed by Craig Petties.

A Memphis federal court jury convicted Lewis last year of six counts of racketeering, drug conspiracy, murder for hire and kidnapping. The murder and kidnapping convictions carried a mandatory life sentence in federal prison. They were the result of the kidnapping and murder of Marcus Turner, whose body was found just across the state line in North Mississippi. Turner was abducted and killed by those in the drug organization because he was suspected of knowing something about $4 million of cocaine that was stolen from the organization.

Lewis was acquitted on one charge connected to Turner’s murder when the jury rejected claims by prosecutors that the gun that killed Turner, according to ballistics tests, belonged to Lewis.

His attorneys told federal Judge Samuel “Hardy” Mays they are appealing the conviction.

Lewis and Martin Lewis, also accused of killing one of the six people whose murders were a part of the federal case, were the only two defendants in the drug case to go to trial. The other defendants, including Petties, pleaded guilty.

The case was the largest drug case ever brought in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

– Bill Dries

Senate Panel Approves Massive Farm Bill

The Senate Agriculture Committee has approved a massive five-year farm bill that would cut spending while also creating new subsidies for farmers.

The legislation approved 15-5 by the panel on Tuesday includes concessions to Southern rice and peanut farmers, thanks to a new top Republican on the committee, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran. The bill eliminates $5 billion in annual subsidies called direct payments that are important to those Southern farmers but makes it easier for them to receive alternate subsidies if prices dip.

The Senate bill calls for a total of roughly $2.4 billion a year in cuts, while a House version to be considered Wednesday would save $4 billion out of almost $100 billion annually. Those cuts include more than $600 million in yearly savings from across-the-board cuts that took effect this year.

Much of the savings in the House and Senate bills comes from eliminating the direct payments, which aren’t tied to production or crop prices. Part of that savings would go toward deficit reduction, but the rest of the money would create new programs and raise subsidies for some crops while business is booming in the agricultural sector.

Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, the top Republican on the committee in the last session of Congress, criticized the higher subsidies for Southern farmers, which are essentially a lower threshold for rice and peanut subsidies to kick in. Roberts said the policy could guarantee those farmers’ profits are average or above average.

Under the House bill, authored by Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., those subsidies for rice and peanut farmers could kick in even sooner.